The two Canadians released from a Cairo jail in the early hours of Sunday are recuperating in a local hotel after their painful collision with violent Middle Eastern history.

Tarek Loubani, an emergency room doctor in London, Ont., and Toronto filmmaker John Greyson are “resting and getting acclimatized” to their unexpected freedom while waiting for the travel documents needed so they can come home after their seven-week ordeal, said Greyson’s sister.

Cecilia Greyson, who was in Toronto on Sunday to get ready for their eventual return, said no travel plans have yet been made, and the two men were “getting back to eating solid food slowly, under a doctor’s supervision.” They had staged a hunger strike towards the end of their detention, living on juice and water alone for two weeks.

But The Associated Press reported Sunday that the pair were prevented from flying out of Cairo after their names appeared on a “stop-list” issued by prosecutors, the news agency attributed the information to airport officials.

According to the news agency, the two men had checked in for a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, but were prevented from boarding the plane. They retrieved their luggage and were free to leave the airport, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a statement from Malaysia as he headed to the Asia-Pacific leaders summit, said his government “has obviously been pushing for (their release) and welcomes this decision by the government of Egypt and we look forward to seeing these two Canadian citizens return home in the not too distant future.”

Loubani’s brother, Mohammed Loubani, told the Star that Tarek and Greyson are “OK, but they have been through a lot.”

They were arrested Aug. 16 during a day of bloody clashes in the heart of Cairo between security forces and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, angered by the military’s ouster of president Mohamed Morsi six weeks earlier.

By coincidence, their release Sunday came as similarly bloody clashes broke again in Cairo, with at least 50 people reported killed by nightfall.

During their 49 days in detention, they were slapped, beaten, ridiculed, “hot-boxed,” kicked and accused of being foreign mercenaries, according to a statement smuggled from the jail and published last weekend.

Mohammed Loubani said an aide to the Egyptian Interior Minister visited them shortly before their release and spoke of “misunderstandings.”

His visit followed weeks of Canadian diplomatic efforts and an international campaign to free them. These efforts were complicated by the chaos in Egypt, and the fact the two men had stepped into the tumultuous tide of its recent history.

They were seized by police Aug. 16 during a stopover in Cairo while en route to Gaza, where Loubani was to teach medical students while Greyson film the project. During the riots in downtown Cairo, Loubani, who has worked in emergency rooms in Canada, Latin America and the Middle East, responded to pleas for medical assistance while Greyson filmed the mayhem.

They were among 600 others who were scooped up during street violence that left dozens dead and hundreds wounded.

The protests were part of the growing polarization of Egypt, which began with widespread protests against Morsi in June, followed by his removal by the military, the arrest of him and hundreds of officials, and the banning in September of his Muslim Brotherhood organization.

Egypt’s current interim government says it is on a “road map to democracy” and will cede power in the spring after new elections are held. But human rights advocates say that dissent is being as severely crushed as it was under autocratic president Hosni Mubarak.

Meanwhile, Cecilia Greyson told the Star she had had a 10-minute talk with her brother, who was feeling “good and really happy” after his release but was still trying to adjust to his sudden freedom.

She said Canadian and international support for the two men had been crucial during their ordeal, although they, being cut off from the world, were unaware of it. Like most prisoners in Egypt, they had no access to the Internet and were denied family phone calls.

“They’re just seeing the website (Free Tarek and John Coalition) for the first time, and I’m sure they’re finding it incredibly overwhelming,” she said.

In the statement smuggled from the prison, they said fellow prisoners in the overcrowded cells were simply Egyptians “picked up on the dark streets by thugs or cops,” far from the police station which they had allegedly attacked.

In the past week, petitions calling for Greyson and Loubani’s release had grown to 150,000, Cecilia Greyson said.

Earlier, Mohammed Loubani told the Star that the abrupt release had taken the Canadians by surprise, in the middle of the night.

“They just came to their cell and said, ‘Come with us.’ They had no idea what was happening until they arrived at the police station. They were stunned.”

Greyson and Loubani met by chance a year ago at the Toronto Palestinian Film Festival at which Greyson was an adviser and Loubani was viewing films.

“Tarek told John he regularly goes to Gaza as a doctor, and John was very interested,” fellow filmmaker Omar Robert Hamilton told the Star last week. “He decided to go and make a film about Tarek’s work”

In Cairo, a lawyer for the two Canadians said they were “in the wrong place at the wrong time” when they landed in Egypt and had initially expected to be quickly freed.

But the authorities told the Star they had gathered “evidence” against the two. Their detention without charge was extended from 15 days to 45 days, then renewed another 45 days — which if served in full would have kept them behind bars until mid-November.

On Sunday, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne tweeted her relief that Greyson and Loubani were free.

And Cecilia Greyson, in her tweet, said: “Christmas comes early this year.”